


we won't need legs to stand

by batteryacids



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video), Mystery Skulls (Band)
Genre: Arthur's POV, Even though it's second person, Gen, Pre-character profiles so keep that in mind too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2606474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batteryacids/pseuds/batteryacids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you think about your story, it feels as though you are falling. Because of this, you begin at the lowest point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we won't need legs to stand

**Author's Note:**

> This work is not in chronological order. The sections jump around in time and space a lot. Chronologically speaking, here is how they are ordered, 1 being the section furthest in the past, and 13 being the section furthest in the future:
> 
> 10 - 3 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 4 - 1 - 5 - 6 - 2 - 11 - 12 - 13
> 
> This work isn't meant to be a coherent narrative necessarily. The middle section, between 10 (frostbite is considerably difficult to heal from.) and 11 (vehicular arson is not the answer.) are all meant to be flashbacks to sensations and thoughts that Arthur has while dreaming. When reading, just take the time to experience each part for what it is, and try not to worry about where in the sequence it falls. Thanks.

**i. frostbite is considerably difficult to heal from.**

You shiver in the pleather seat. Pulled over on the side of the road, lights off, you wonder if anyone will pass by. You wonder what they will think when they see the van. You wonder if they will see the ghostly image of the decal that you dug out with your metal fingernails last week.

Mostly you are cold, but something keeps you from crawling in the back under the quilts piled there haphazardly. It is the weight of knowing that they were touched by someone else, or maybe that they have always been neatly folded for as long as you remember by another not you.

But you are alone now, and cold, and your eyelids are heavy and your breath fogs up the darkness beyond the window that you stare into as you slip.

**ii. there is poetry in brutal efficiency.**

            You have never admitted it before, but it was a beautiful death.

            It was cinematic, almost, and you remember thinking that even as your palm connected with the broad plane of his back. Despite the numbness in your green fingers, you remember that last sensation, of the scratchy wool that snagged the hangnail on your ring finger. How could you forget the last thing you felt with that arm?

            You remember the way he twisted in the air and reached for you. You had never known before what a look of betrayal was, exactly. But you felt such, such relief in watching. He saw the truth, and you saw the truth, and both of you understood the other in that moment.

            You remember the crunch of ribs warped and the squelch of meat on rock and the subsequent scream that unleashed a cloud of bats. You remember the snapping and ripping as teeth sunk into your arm. You could only think one thing then.

            Its beauty lay in its ease.

**iii. HELLFIRE HELLFIRE HELLFIRE.**

You expected this. You understood. No one else seemed to.

            Purple flames licked at your heels and you knew that she knew, but did not understand. You wondered how much the metal around her wrist hurt (it functioned but did not sense pressure it was dead). You wondered why you bothered dragging her away at all.

            You knew everything was ruined then.

**iv. people would take your raging far more seriously if you weren’t crying the entire time.**

“YOU FUCKER!”

            You remember the black smudges of her eyeliner and the way they made her look sunken and dead. You stayed silent and accepted it.

            “YOU KNEW! YOU KNEW AND YOU DIDN’T SAY! YOU DIDN’T TELL ME! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME!”

            She wasn’t asking for answers because she knew them already. You kept driving. Away.

            Her phoenix fury died into a cold and distant sobbing only to be reheated and flare up once more. She hit you many times despite everything, but she was not strong enough. She passed out along I-80. When she fell over, you remember seeing an exit sign in the murky darkness.

            What Cheer. Exit 201.

**v. what made you so vindictive?**

            You knew that she only stuck around in the hopes of seeing your demise. You knew it though you never talked. She did all the speaking, to everyone. You could no longer open your mouth, you found. You still do not know exactly why.

            The investigations became more and more dangerous. Mystery had known from the beginning, seeing your heart and its state, and they distanced themselves from you. You and death shared intimate moments many times, but you had a determination to match hers. All you could do was hope that she would fatigue first.

            You were right.

**vi. some bodies may be temples, but all are ruins at your feet.**

You were never able to return and see the body, but in the hospital bed, you imagined it as they amputated what was left to carve a nerve socket in, a sterile chrome bowl to cradle a different dead limb.

            You imagined the rust red of that stalagmite, and what sorts of insects might congregate. You imagined if they never retrieved it, that bleeding heart mushrooms might burst from the chest, or that a blanket of moss might creep in like a funeral shroud.

            You didn’t get to go to the funeral, either. It was quick, and the only time you didn’t see her for a full 24 hour period.

            You were released in a month with a heavy cold arm and an itch below the platinum.

**vii. your contempt will always taste like grief.**

You knew it really began when he joined the two of you. You pretended that this was good and fine but you knew it wasn’t. You just didn’t know why until now.

            You always hated tricycles.

**viii. in the process your body is subsumed piece by piece.**

You still don’t know what they did with your arm. You never asked, and you like to think that they were grateful for that. You also like to think that they left it in the cave in a pool of cracked red. Maybe a bear retrieved it and gave it to her cub.

            The first few days with the new dead one, you were pathetic.

            You felt as a baby, bumping it against things, not realizing when it was moving at time. You snapped the spines of 11 pens and started wearing black pants. You could barely get those black pants on yourself, and it took 15 minutes. Afterwards you lay in bed and cried until she came back and you pretended you hadn’t.

            You still remove it as often as you can, preferring the phantom sensations to the cold electricity your body sparks through that husk of a limb. The debilitating pain you sometimes feel keeps you alive.

**ix. you are the bone-deep fury of an abscessed tooth.**

Somehow, before the casket slid open, you knew who would be there.

**x. you are notorious for rubbing salt in the wound. cheap vodka in the wound. battery acid in the wound!**

“I’ve been thinking Art, and I want your opinion on something.”

            You walked together, single file through sickly green mist that the torch could not dispel. You used to adore that name he had given you, but now it just made your stomach tighten.

            “About what?” you asked innocuously, though you knew what would come next.

            “About Vivi.” And he clandestinely flashed you a tiny velvet box from his pocket with a knowing wink, like some secret only you would ever know. He was always good at reeling people in like that.

            He replaced it in his pocket and stopped at the edge of a precipice. A low whistle echoed through the bowels of the cave as he leaned over to peer into the jagged abyss.

            “Check it out, Art! Wow-y. What a drop.”

            The spirit’s job wasn’t hard, and you never blamed it.

**xi. vehicular arson is not the answer.**

You wake, much to your surprise. The sky is lit, but the darkness has yet to seep out from the woods. You are suddenly full of energy and you know what you have to do now. 

For once, your arm does not get in the way. It cooperates as though it knows that this will be the end, helping to swing you out of the driver’s seat, slam the door. You hurry to the back and swing wide the old doors, their creaking swallowed by the big emptiness of the wooded highway. Your metal hand closes around the handle of the gasoline can.

You know that this is the place, and you know he is watching. He has to be watching.

You throw arcs of yellow liquid, watching them spatter in an abstract vision over the peeling yellow-orange paint of the van. You heft the can, over and over, until it is empty, and then you dig around in your pocket for the matches. You light one and throw the rest in after it.

**xii. hate is a verb.**

“I hate you,” are the first words from her mouth, but you are pulled to her warmth in the threshold anyway. Your arms find their familiar placements around her waist, and her shoulder fits so well in the hollow beneath your jaw.

“You are such a liar,” you tell her, and her laugh is not forced.

**null. all the trees of the field will clap their hands for you.**

It is autumn and everything is dying beautifully. You spend the whole day in her apartment, watching old videos and looking at older pictures. There is an ease with which you interact now, as if you were children again.

You arrive at the graveyard at exactly 3:00 pm, when the sun is resisting its fall and the light is golden. She knows the way by heart, and you follow her practiced footsteps to the plot.

When you arrive, your chest tightens, but you continue. From the bag you brought, you set out all the purple candles you could find, of all sorts of shades and sizes, and light each one. She brought Skittles—his favorite—and an old ascot, silky and musty. You both brought letters that are neatly and carefully folded. You hold hands as you burn them over the candles, and your breath hitches when you think you saw the flames turn purple. But you blink and they are normal, and the ashes float over the Skittles and the ascot and the grass you are careful not to step on.

You think you hear a whisper when the wind picks up, and you think it said, “It’s okay.”


End file.
